Ethereal
by KaydenceRei
Summary: He could have loved her if they'd had more time, he was sure of it.


**Disclaimer** : I own this cream soda until I finish drinking it, but after that, I got nothing.

 **Ethereal** :

Bruce felt it as thoroughly as he imagined it would feel to have someone take a dagger, shove it into his chest, and twist until they buried it deep within his heart. He sat on the beach in Fiji, no civilization for miles, and then that sensation of dread filled him like never before.

He felt it the moment Natasha ceased to exist. He felt it the moment she took her last breath. It didn't make that much sense, in reality, because they had never managed to become more than a chaste little kiss and a shove off a cliff. Regardless, he knew that when she said she adored him, that was likely the closest equivalent to love that someone as emotionally unavailable as she was could possibly manage to admit to.

Anger wasn't something he felt towards her for the forced transformation, not lately, and it hadn't been his other half's reason for running. It was the one moment where he and The Hulk agreed, and they agreed on Natasha Romanoff. She couldn't be put into a situation where initiating the lullaby could very well get her killed like had so nearly happened in Sokovia. It wasn't to say he hadn't been upset with what she did, but he knew she did it with the best intentions.

"I knew how you would feel about what I was going to do," came her voice from behind him, "That's why when I kissed you, and I told you that I adored you, I never gave you the chance to say anything."

Bruce almost couldn't believe it when he heard her voice, but when he turned to look at her, it was as though she wasn't really there. She was gone when he blinked his eyes and he wondered if dehydration made him see her and hear her. He had been sitting here for a while now, he had lost track of time.

Then she was sitting right beside him, knees pulled tightly to her chest with her arms hugged around them, "I knew how you felt about me." Natasha just stared off into the water and he got up the courage to reach his hand out to her.

It passed right through her.

"If I let you say something, if I actually heard what you felt, I don't think I could have done what I needed to do."

She wasn't real.

But that pain he had felt a few minutes ago _was_.

"I'm dead."

Bruce couldn't stop staring at her. Natasha's face finally turned to look at him and her eyes said it all, they were weren't just their usual jade color; they were dim, faded, expressionless. They were dead, their usual brightness long gone. "Dead?" he finally croaked.

"You've been gone a long time," she reminded him, "I was bound to get on the wrong end of bullet or knife somewhere along the line. That's what happens to people like me, we don't live long lives, they just feel like millions of years wrapped into such a small amount."

"How?" and he wasn't sure he really wanted to know.

She shrugged at the question, "I don't remember, turns out, death is a little weird like that. Didn't imagine I'd wind up here, with you, but I'm okay with it."

All he really wanted to do was touch her, especially after eight months of never seeing her besides in his dreams. "This can't be real..." he insisted as he rubbed at his eyes.

"That won't make me go away."

"What will?" He couldn't stand the sight of the phantom Natasha beside him, and her only response was to shrug once more and look back at the view.

"Tony and Steve are having a war among themselves," she told him, "Until it started to involve everyone around them."

That was an unexpected turn, "A war?"

Natasha merely nodded, "Superhuman registration act. Steve's rebelling against it, Tony's supporting it to his full extent."

"You choose a side?"

"I might have, but I'm not sure," she answered, and she didn't entirely look like she cared if she had or not, "Truth is, I don't think I cared who won."

Bruce frowned a little as his brow crinkled at her words, "Steve's your friend, I'd imagine that's who you would side with."

"You'd think so," Natasha halfheartedly agreed, "But I'm sure you figured out that I don't let my heart choose my path, if it did..." the ghost, or spirit, or hallucination of her looked a little melancholy now, "Well, I suppose it doesn't matter."

"You're not real..."

She looked over with both eyebrows arched and gave the barest of smiles, "And yet, here I am."

"Why?"

Yet another shrug, and really, if this was real, it seemed that she hadn't changed much in death, "I missed you, maybe that's why." Natasha actually looked a little thoughtful now, "I probably deserved whatever happened."

That was the first moment where he believed she wasn't a hallucination, because no matter what she had done, his mind would never for a second fathom to think she deserved to be dead. "You're real..." he mumbled in disbelief.

"Of course, didn't expect you to actually believe it though," she replied with a bemused _and_ amused expression as she got lost in the water again. "Gods, aliens, supersoldiers—Bruce, you're The Hulk, and you were drawing the line at..." she paused in uncertainty, "Whatever I am?"

"Eight months alone, you get a little inept with telling fantasy from reality."

"You could go back," she sounded so certain of that.

"What would be the point now?"

Shrugs seemed to be her bread and butter in death, "Tony misses you, so does Pepper." Natasha was quiet in thought for several minutes after that. "I think I would have picked Tony," she admitted suddenly.

"Why would you..."

"It was a piece of you to hold onto," she stated before he could finish, "And I missed you, it was my fault, but I missed you anyways. Unless I'm giving myself too much credit, you did leave because of me, right?"

"Yeah..." and at her rather hollow expression, he wondered if she expected any other answer. But real or not, and he still wasn't entirely sure he believed she was, he felt the need to make her feel better, "Not for the reason you think."

Natasha's faded green eyes looked to him for the answer now, "Then what was the reason?"

"You almost died...I left to protect you..." and really, it seemed like a rather stupid excuse now that he was sitting here next to her... _whatever she was_. He was a scientist, if he could see it and he could touch it, then it was real.

He could see her. He couldn't touch her. And he wasn't sure he would ever believe she was truly real, even if he no longer believed she was a figment of his imagination, "There's some irony in that, right?" she mused with a small smile.

Bruce felt that pain in his chest all over again.

"I meant it, you know?"

"What?" and regardless of the fact he was trying hard not to show it, all he wanted to do was reach out and hold this nonexistent Natasha.

Her hand reached up, a wisp of a touch on his cheek and he actually felt a small flutter where her fingers would have lain, "I wanted to run with you, but I couldn't."

That hurt more than anything, "Why couldn't you?"

"You wouldn't have forgiven yourself if we left them all behind, if they failed and we weren't there," and her eyes finally took on emotion as they began to look downcast, "I suppose I just wasn't meant to have that, I don't know how to have it, but I know how to ruin the chances of it," she added softly. "But I promise I really did want it."

He felt the knife twisting all over again, "Me too..."

It was the first real smile he saw on her since she appeared, "That means a lot."

"Were you mad when I left?"

Natasha shook her head, "I wanted to be, I tried to be, but...I couldn't do it."

Again, he felt himself asking a familiar question, "Why not?"

"When I first approached you, I wanted to fix you, to save you," she admitted, "Turns out, I couldn't, but you fixed me... at least a little bit."

Bruce wished for the first time he never left.

"It's alright, Bruce."

There was one thing that bugged him now, more than anything else, "Why come to me? Why not Barton and his family?"

Natasha's head inclined ever so slightly to the side as she thought about the question, "Because I had almost ten years with them, they were my family, the only one I've ever known." He wasn't sure that made sense in retrospect, but he didn't understand her reasoning on a lot of things since he met her. "I feel like we didn't have enough time, I wanted more time."

"With me?"

She smiled again at his disbelief, "Clearly, don't be a dork about this."

He felt a little sheepish, the way she always used to make him feel when she made comments like that, "Hard not to be around you..."

"I never thought I'd like you, you know?" she questioned as she lowered her hand to the top of her knee.

"I never thought you would either."

Natasha nodded at that.

"You really don't know what happened to you?" he asked again, just to be sure.

She chuckled a little, "Maybe I don't want to. Maybe it wasn't a good death," and there were a lot of maybes coming from her, "Maybe it was something stupid; like I got hit by a bus, or fell down a sinkhole, or eaten by a shark."

Her dark humor seemed to have followed her in death, if anything. "Well, you haven't changed..." he commented sadly.

"You have," was her reply, "At least before all of this, you smiled and you joked around, it was self-deprecating and stupid...but I liked it."

"You're dead..." he said again in a whisper, and this time, he really believed it.

"Yeah... do you think you can forgive what I did?"

Bruce looked over at her in an instant, "I was never mad..."

Natasha gave the barest of nods at that, "We were over before we ever really started..."

"I think I could have loved you..." he admitted, and he couldn't believe he did.

There was the tiniest flicker of sadness in her eyes, and he thought that maybe if ghosts or spirits could cry, that might be the moment where Natasha finally did. But there was nothing more on an emotional front, just an unexpected reply, "I think I would have tried to get as close to love as possible. I think you're the closest I ever would have come."

He put his hand over top of hers, even if he couldn't feel that it was actually there. Really, it was more than he ever would have expected to hear from her, even if she wasn't alive. He found her lullaby in the sunset over the ocean, "Sun's getting real low..."

Bruce wished he never said it, because when he looked, Natasha was gone.

He could have loved her if they'd had more time, he was sure of it.

* * *

 **I was in a weird place for this story. Hope it wasn't too weird for you, though.**


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